Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Italian).djvu/37

Rh he had passed from fact to fiction; and his eyes were wet, his voice shook, with the spell of his hallucination. His words carried conviction, and not a doubt clouded the happiness of his listeners. They laughed and cried and kissed each other, feeling themselves suddenly released from all their doubts and scruples, from all the miserable conflicts of conscience that had tortured them as Italians and as Catholics! The reconciliation between Church and State! The dream of so many years! What peace it promised, what a future of love and harmony! What a sense of freedom and security!

"Thank God, thank God!" the mother cried, sinking into a chair, worn out by her emotions. And then, in a moment or two, they were all at the lad again, clamoring for fresh details.

"Is it really true?"

"Have n't you dreamed it?"

"Go on, tell us everything. Tell us about the Pope, about the crowd, about what happened next". ..

"What happened next?" the boy began again, in a tired voice. "I hardly know. There was such an uproar, such confusion, such an outburst of frenzy, that the mere recollection of it makes my brain reel. All I saw was a vortex of arms and flags, and the breath was almost knocked out of me by a thundering blow on the chest.